I think I’m closing in on the ick factor of eating horses. Even when they aren’t pets or given names, horses have a certain dignity about them. We see wild horses racing across a valley and it touches our hearts — the freedom of it, the grace in motion. Cows lying around in a field chewing their cud and passing gas just don’t set the spirit soaring in the same way. Cows and sheep seem remarkably generic and remarkably dumb. Of course, that doesn’t mean they deserve to be eaten, or that their individual lives should be valued less, but somehow it’s easier to eat a beef stew than a stallion steak.

My considered prediction is that horse DNA will eventually be found in food in the U.S. That’s because, if we look, we will find the DNA of practically everything in our food. Tell me again, what’s the FDA’s “acceptable” amount of insect parts allowed in my salad?

I have some equivocation about eating veal because of how the young animals are raised. But I don’t equivocate at all when it comes to horses. I’ll ride them, bet on them and read stories about them, but I won’t eat them. Knowingly.